Chapter 38: If We Make it to the Morning - The Night Market

Leroux Tower had never known such noise. From the balconies above, the crowd surged with feral delight. Vampires from every bloodline, every allegiance, hungry for bloodshed, spectacle and scandal. Music boomed, lights pulsed like heartbeats, and beneath them, faces glistened with thrill and greed.

In the centre of it all: a perfect rectangle of polished obsidian. A space stripped bare of pretence, glamour, or escape.

And there, poised on a balcony for the Families to spectate, stood Lord Dominic Ode flanked in a three-piece suit of violet, sporting cufflinks worth a fortune. His smile was slim, sculpted. His voice, when it rose above the roar, was proud, but stitched with arrogance.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, drawing the words out like a sword from its sheath, echoing through the speakers, ‘what a privilege it is to welcome you tonight to a historic undertaking. One beneath a roof so high that those who owned it may have had perpetual nosebleeds from looking down upon the rest of us!’

A wave of laughter rippled. Some clapped. The Cavendish seats did not.

Dominic paced slowly, hands clasped behind his back, a sermon from a pulpit.

‘For decades, the Night Market has been a symbol of trade, of shared fortune, of . . . unity, even. And yet, in recent years, that unity has frayed. Scepticism of our own kind is rampant. The new blood finds it difficult to adopt tradition. Brothers turn against brothers. These are issues we whisper in secret for fear of being judged. But tonight – tonight – we abandon secrets. Tonight, we confront that harsh truth.’

The crowd leaned forward. He was feeding them.

‘On this hallowed floor, we settle blood with blood, and show the next generation that strength needs not one to be conniving, and grudges need not be shielded by tradition. You will witness what our kind has always done best: resolve what cannot be spoken, through what cannot be ignored.’

He turned now, gesturing grandly to one side below him.

‘Representing the Cavendish Family: their hound, Enforcer, and bearer of a terror magnificent . . . Laik Hewer!’

Cheers, a few jeers, and murmurs of anticipation rocked the floor.

Laik stepped from the shadow of the tunnel and into the spotlight. No gloves. No headgear. No sanctuary. No mercy. His bare arms were marked with yellow bruises from training. A faint sheen of oil slicked his muscles, more prominent on the back where multiple scars collected, most caused by his own family. He said nothing, acknowledging the crowd only with a raised fist. He wasn’t here for their praise. He was here to bury the past as deep as it would go.

‘And from the House of Ode,’ Dominic continued, ‘a paragon of loyalty, our sharpest blade and stalker of history’s fiercest battlegrounds. The battleaxe of the ages: Horus Carr!’

The applause was near deafening now. Horus appeared slowly, calm as thunderclouds. His chest was bare, criss-crossed with scars and old damage, his fists freshly taped. He cracked his neck from one side to the other as if the whole ordeal bored him already.

Laik narrowed his gaze.

Horus smiled.

‘Combatants, to the centre!’ Dominic called.

They both approached one another, undeterred. Horus was clearly the bigger of the two both by height and thickness.

‘Finally. Nowhere to run this time,’ he said, stretching his arms with a pop of the shoulder. ‘When I’ve broken every part of you, and our audience here are cheering for me to finish it, I want you to remember one single thing: nobody’s saving you this time, monster.’

Laik threw up his guard and took a stance. ‘I’m done with your bullshit.’

The bell rang.

They collided.

The opening was savage. Not an exchange but an eruption.

Laik surged forward, aiming low – sharp, technical. Quick kicks. Disruptive elbows. He slipped beneath a wide swing, struck the ribs, then danced back, avoiding the answering knee. He moved like he was thinking ten seconds ahead, footwork honed, rage, and the thing within, held in check.

Horus barely blinked. He took the hits like they meant nothing. Like they were warming him up.

It was a testing display, finding openings in guards, challenging reactions. Barring a couple of heavy swings from both sides, it was clear this wasn’t going to be quick and brutal. Those that landed lacked bite – for now. The bell rang, and they retreated to their corners.

Reese had volunteered to work the corner, feeding him water and testing the swelling over an eye. She compared his footwork, suggested how to follow up, pointed out the feint every time Horus threw a left cross, but Laik wasn’t listening to a single word of it. He watched his opponent with fierce eyes, and Horus did the same. By the time the rest was over, they were keen to get back to it.

They circled each other like wolves. The crowd brayed for more. Above it all, Dominic smiled as if orchestrating a disaster. By round two, blood had been drawn. A cut above Horus’s brow. A bruise forming across Laik’s ribs.

In the third, Laik was starting to flag. Not from lack of skill, but from restraint. Mortis’s words kept ringing in his skull – Don’t kill him. Just humiliate. He could feel the oppressive gaze of Mortis on him even he wasn’t facing the Cavendishes. Even incensed to get this done, he wasn’t fighting freely. He was pulling back, shackled by his vows to the Family. And Horus could feel it.

Horus pressed forward, sensing the weakness. He feinted once, then cracked him hard across the cheek.

Laik staggered.

‘Are you toying with me?’ Horus shouted, grabbing Laik by an arm and slamming him against the barricade. ‘Bring him out! Call that thing inside you! I want you to take this seriously!’

He followed it up with a front kick to the ribs, drawing a painful grunt. Blood trailed down Laik’s lip, but he smiled anyway.

‘I don’t take orders from you.’

‘No. You take them from everyone else. That’s all you’ve done – run to someone stronger, someone meaner, to protect you. Why are you holding back, huh? Did someone tell you? Your man up there, maybe? What’s wrong with you? After everything we’ve – agh – God damn you! Do you not feel anything? Anything at all for the hell I’ve put you through? Your people? That bitch I offed?’

Laik straightened himself against the barricade as the world snapped into focus once more. The Sins within rolled over at the name, sensing the upsurge of resentment, riding it like a tide, but instead fought to travel to a deeper part of its host. They didn’t want any of this, not while—

A thunder crack of anger erupted within Laik, pulling him up by heavy muscles. The crowd noise dulled to a muffled roar, like sound trapped under glass.

Viola . . .

Horus smiled, slow and ugly, knowing that he had finally got beneath Laik’s skin. ‘Oh, Laik . . . It was such a laugh. You should’ve seen the look on her face. Her scream was like a song—’

Laik was suddenly upon him. The first blow cracked against Horus’s jaw, the second against his ribs. A third caught him clean across the face, spraying blood across the tiles. Laik drove him backward into the barricade with a snarl, hitting him again and again, each strike heavier, wilder, fuelled by both old and new grudges.

The audience erupted. The air throbbed with the rhythm of fists on flesh. Horus tried to parry, but Laik barely registered it; his hands were a blur, every thought burned away by rage.

And that rage made him sloppy. Horus caught him off-guard with an elbow to the temple, staggering him back. His grin returned – split and crimson. ‘There it is,’ he hissed, spitting blood. ‘Knew you had it in you. Bring it all out, don’t be shy. We’re just getting started.’

Laik dabbed his lip with the back of a hand and turned sideways on, breathing steadily, ready for another go.

‘You seem confused,’ Laik growled. ‘I think you’re under the impression that the monster inside me gets to bury you. But you’d be wrong.’ Laik’s fangs slipped free from their confines as his features darkened. ‘Because I do.’

Horus spat to the ground in disgust. ‘How can you possibly think you stand a chance like this? I almost killed you the last time, before we were interrupted.’

‘Let’s find out.’

Laik launched.

What followed was chaos. Unrestrained and unrelenting.

Their bodies slammed, twisted, exchanged blow for blow. The crowd screamed for more. Sweat flew from their shoulders with every impact. Knuckles split skin. Shin met thigh. Horus dropped to one knee from a brutal right hook and Laik backed away to bark:

‘Get up!’

Horus wiped blood from his mouth, dazed but laughing.

‘Ohh, this might be interesting after all.’

Laik didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, using every drop of anger he’d buried. The Sins stirred, twisted, being wrenched upward. It was cracking through his skin, a midnight black seeping from his marrow, but refusing to rise further.

He caught Horus on the side of the skull, felt the cartilage give. He fought for Swan, for Reese, for Duncan, the Cavendishes who took him in. He fought for Pepper – for everything she might still become. For the innocents who sheltered him in the Forest of Dean – their reward, a murder by association. For Viola, whose future was stolen.

For his own hopeful fate.

The punches quickened. The rage became overpowering. He furiously drove his fists until his knuckles bled, until the pain failed to register anymore, grabbed two fistfuls of Horus’s hair and drove a knee into the nose. It cracked loudly enough to be heard.

Horus stumbled back, dizzy, blood pouring freely.

He hunched, blinded for a second, dazed. He snorted and spluttered broken laugher. Laik was already on him – shoulder into the gut, driving him into the wall. But the flesh turned to concrete as Horus slammed an elbow down deep in Laik’s spine. The grip gave and Horus pulled him aside, yanking the arm backwards, and throwing him onto his back. Horus drove a foot upon the shoulder.

Laik felt a flash of pain as something popped under the impact. He cried out.

The bell furiously rang. It had done so seconds before, but neither had heard it.

They separated.

Laik got to his feet, gripping the burning limb, clearly struggling.

Horus spat blood on the floor, looking all business. ‘Ooooohhhhkayyyy. You’ve had your fucking fun,’ he hissed. ‘Now I get to go to work.’

Pepper didn’t wait for the end of the round. She didn’t wait for the bell, or the murmurs rising through the crowd like a tide of static. She was already moving.

From her place above the arena, on the upper balcony, the fight had stopped being entertainment somewhere in the last brutal flurry. She’d seen the way Laik had reeled, how he’d limped away with his shoulder hanging too low, his face a broken mess of swelling bruises. That final stamp Horus delivered had been calculated – not for flair, but to maim. To end it slowly. Surgically.

She could no longer sit and watch him be dismantled.

Elbowing her way through the first line of gawking spectators, she ducked beneath a velvet rope and hit the stairwell at pace, the clack of her boots lost beneath the roaring above. Security along the route shouted her name, their hands out in warning, stepping aside when she threatened them with insubordination.

Down the stairwell, then the wide hallway that curved beneath the stands, cold with poured concrete and humming with electricity. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as she hit the double doors with both palms and shouldered through, emerging into the side of the pit.

The stench hit first. The reek of sweat, the tang of blood. Then came the noise: the crowd above hadn’t stopped roaring, a storm of glee and expectation.

Laik was seated on a bench near the wall. Reese knelt beside him, her hands busy with gauze, tape, and a stained towel. His chest was dotted with blood, one eye swollen shut, his right shoulder badly askew.

He looked like a man who was moments away from becoming a corpse. This time, for good.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst was the look on his face. Laik was ready to go back in. He accepted that this was going to fare badly for him.

Reese glanced up, startled as Pepper crossed the pit floor, eyes wild.

The noise quieted into a murmur of confused tension. All eyes turned to her as she walked steadily across the black-stone tiles, ignoring Reese, ignoring the gasps from the stands, her gaze locked onto Horus with a look sharp enough to draw blood.

Up above, Dominic turned in his seat with a frown and leaned toward the Cavendishes.

Laik pushed himself upright, every breath clearly costing him. One arm hung dead at his side, and he stared at the woman with dread.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he rasped, limping toward her.

She didn’t answer right away. Her chest rose and fell, breath caught in something deeper than panic. This moment had arrived sooner than she’d ever wanted, yet later than it ever should have. The crowd whispered, buzzed. A thousand vampires holding their breath.

‘I won’t let it end like this,’ Pepper said finally, her voice trembling with control. ‘Not like this. Laik, you gotta—’

‘Pepper, you shouldn’t be here.’ Laik flicked his eyes to the way she came. ‘You needed to . . . y’know. That was the point.’

‘I need to tell you something.’ Her voice dropped. ‘And I need you to listen.’

‘But there’s the—’

‘Laik, just—’

‘Pep, you can’t—’

‘Just shut up and listen!’ she spat.

Laik tried to take a step toward her, but froze mid-motion as she shared her revelation.

‘The Rose,’ Pepper began. ‘The Eternal Rose. It can only . . . It can only be used once.’

He stared at her like the words hadn’t yet connected, making a sound of confusion.

‘I found out in the Vault by accident. There were tests done, they – they discovered it has its limits and can only cure one person, just one. And I tried to find the right time to tell you, but it never came, and I kept holding it and I didn’t know how to tell you and I’m . . . I’m telling you now.’ She hesitated. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides as her face broke. ‘And I’m using it on Claire.’

‘You’re what?’

‘I have to.’

‘Wait, no, that’s not, that’s not what we agreed. You promised—’

‘I didn’t know then!’ she snapped. ‘And I don’t know how to tell you even now. I just know that you need what’s inside you tonight. To win. To survive. Without it, you . . . you don’t stand a chance. And I’m the reason it won’t come out! So, I’m doing what I can to make sure my sister lives. And you do too.’

He stared at her, disbelief scrawled across his face, pained by something more than his injuries.

‘My family,’ she said. ‘We came from North Wales. Originally. Same as you. My mother. My grandmother. My family has been running from a sordid past for generations. God, all we did was move and move and move . . . I thought it was some – some stupid story my grandma told us. We were running from our history. That our great-grandmother did something unforgivable. A tragedy we apparently couldn’t even dream of. But it was true. She caused deaths. Turned the village against the rest of the family and forced them to flee. All because she accidentally cursed a boy who returned from war. Tethered something monstrous to him. All because . . . she abused her mother’s duty . . . as a Sin Eater . . .’

Laik reeled as if the air had been punched from his lungs.

The words came faster now, her voice shaking.

‘It’s why the creature won’t surface when I’m around,’ she said. ‘Why it faltered at the Night Market when we first met. The crash, remember? Even then. I carry my great-grandmother’s blood, and I know you know a thing about blood. That monster, the collective of all the wrongs you carry, it knows me, my lineage, or whatever. It knows I hold its leash. It hid itself so it wouldn’t get my attention. But now I know.’

Pepper’s voice shook. ‘And that’s why . . . that’s why I have to do this. We need a distraction, remember? The biggest. We need chaos. You need to survive this. The only way that happens is if they – that thing – comes out now – and I can make it happen.’

He shook his head, face crumpled. ‘No. No way, you don’t get to—’

‘I do.’ She stepped in. ‘Because they’re my sins to carry now. Because this is all – all my fault, without even knowing. And because I’m asking you not to fight it. Not this time.’

She cupped his face in her hands, despite the grime and blood. ‘I need you to trust me, Laik. I know it’s listening. Just this time, Laik, just for me . . . step back.’ She examined his eyes. Deposits of tar squatted at the edge of his eyes. His pupils flashed a spark of gold. His breathing was shallow. Something ancient stirred beneath his skin, under the bruises and bone.

His eyes welled, and hers did too.

She leaned in and kissed him. A brief touch, no longer than a heartbeat. But everything was in it. And she pressed her forehead against his and hushed him, so his breathing slowed.

‘You can hear me in there, can’t you?’ she whispered, searching his features. ‘And I reckon you know exactly who I am. You have all along. While you hide away.’

Laiks head lightly bobbed against hers, involuntarily.

‘And you know what I can do, yes?’ she whispered.

Another nod.

‘Then I get why you’ve been hesitant to show your face around me. And to be fair, I would be keeping my head down too, knowing there was someone who can boss you around like I supposedly can. For what it’s worth? Not my fault. Blame the one who imprisoned you. But, today, you don’t get to pretend you have a choice anymore. You don’t get to sit there in the dark and spectate, hear me?’ Pepper’s thumb brushed a smear of blood from Laik’s cheek whilst her eyes flickered. ‘I . . . won’t allow it. So, I want you . . . to perfectly understand what I say to you next. Okay?’

Another shallow nod in response.

‘Good. That’s good.’ Pepper placed her lips ever so gently on his forehead, scrunching her eyes tightly together as a tear raced down her cheek. Her face folded to seriousness as she delivered her ultimatum, ‘Because you can come out on your own accord . . . or I reach in and pull you out myself. What’s it gonna be?’

The onlookers gushed in disbelief as the Sins exploded free, a cascade of old terrors erupting over Laik like a cyclone of shadow and bone, collating into a single, terrible entity. The monster uncoiled and towering, its shadowy form blotting out the arena light, dwarfing Pepper as she stood before it, unflinching.

Its golden eyes snapped to hers.

Pepper tightened her grip on the locket at her throat, unperturbed. ‘Well. I’m glad you can finally join us. I think we understand each other now, don’t we?’ she said.

The bell furiously danced above them, indicating the next round was to begin.

She stepped to the side, revealing Horus approaching.

‘Listen. Our man,’ she said, eyes still on the beast, ‘has been taking a beating because you decided to be shy. And that ain’t right. I don’t care what you did in the past to be shoved in a box . . . but whatever it was, you have a chance to make up for it right here, right now. This one – him there? – he’s spent decades hounding you to see just what you’re capable of. Y’know what I think? I think we should give him exactly what he wants.’

The Sins tensed. Its body fizzed and rippled at the words as it lowered itself down to pounce. Static charged the air.

Pepper narrowed her eyes at Horus.

‘Go get ’im.’